


Torchbearers

by Riona



Category: Life Is Strange (Video Game), Life Is Strange 2
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-01
Updated: 2018-10-01
Packaged: 2019-07-23 08:33:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,616
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16155425
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Riona/pseuds/Riona
Summary: Sean and Daniel meet Max and Chloe in the ruins of Arcadia Bay.





	Torchbearers

**Author's Note:**

> I just really needed this fic to exist. I hope you enjoy it!

“Sean?” Daniel asks, quietly. “What are we doing here?”

“Looking around,” Sean says. “Might be somewhere we can get food here. You know, after that asshole took our bread.”

Daniel tucks his hands into his sleeves, hunching his shoulders. “I don’t think there are any stores here.”

Sean freezes mid-step.

There’s nothing here. Ruins. The morning sun is lighting up half-demolished walls, gleaming off shattered glass in the road. This town was destroyed three years ago; looters and survivors will have picked it clean by now. There’s nothing here for them.

Why did he come down here? Why the hell did he think they might find a _store_ open somewhere in this wreckage?

“Sorry,” Sean says. “I don’t know what I was thinking. Let’s get back to the road, huh?”

-

Sean wasn’t expecting to find someone _else_ in Arcadia Bay. But that’s definitely a person standing in the road ahead of them.

He falters in his step. She doesn’t look like a cop. But after that gas station guy... well, cops aren’t the only people they have to watch out for.

“Whoa,” Daniel breathes. “Her hair is _awesome_.”

Her hair looks a lot like the way Jenn did hers for the party, pink fading to blue. Sean feels like someone’s sitting on his chest.

He tries to focus on the other girl he’s just noticed. Picking her way back to Blue Hair from the ruins of some kind of building, larger than a house. A restaurant, something like that. She’s holding a seriously ancient camera.

They look a little older than Sean. Twenty? Something like that. Maybe around the age Sean’s longing for right now; he kind of wishes he could just skip a few years, come back when he’s had time to grieve and he’s figured out how they’re supposed to live from now on.

Assuming he’s actually going to manage that. Maybe he’ll try to skip forward three years and he’ll already be dead.

The girls have noticed them, but they aren’t saying anything. Just... watching, warily. _Like wolves,_ Sean thinks.

Should they try begging? The girls’ clothes are pretty worn; they don’t look loaded. Maybe it’d be worth a shot, though?

“Hey!” Daniel says, trotting closer, Mushroom sticking close by his heels. It’s a good thing the dog seems to fucking love that kid; they don’t exactly have a leash. “Your hair is _super_ cool.”

Sean hurries to stay with him. Dad raised them pretty well, in Sean’s opinion, but ‘don’t talk to strangers’ is one lesson Daniel never seems to have gotten the hang of.

“Thanks,” Blue Hair says. “I guess. I live for compliments from two-year-olds.”

For Daniel’s sake, Sean tries very hard not to laugh.

Daniel looks outraged. “I’m _nine_.”

Blue Hair scrubs a hand through her admittedly cool hair. “Sorry. I’m being an asshole. This place just puts me in a bad mood.”

It’s not going to be that easy. Daniel kicks grumpily at the cracked road. “I was just saying it was cool,” he mutters.

“Yeah, I get that,” Blue Hair says. “Thanks. Your clothes are pretty cool as well, now that I look. Is that real blood?”

The question throws Sean back into the horror of that moment in Seattle all over again, but it makes Daniel laugh. “No,” he says.

“No?” Blue Hair asks. “I’m pretty sure you murdered someone.”

Daniel shakes his head. “I made it. The blood, I mean.”

“Yeah, by murdering someone.”

“Yeah,” Daniel says, playing along at last. “This huge guy.”

“I bet he couldn’t take a compliment either,” Blue Hair says. “I’d better be careful.”

“I’m Daniel,” Daniel says brightly, all insults apparently forgiven. “This is Mushroom.”

Sean should probably train him out of giving his name so easily. They’re in the news. Maybe they should start using false names.

How’s he supposed to explain that to Daniel, though? He’s probably not going to buy ‘it’s just something people do when they’re camping’.

But something weird happens. The girls exchange glances, like they’re not sure whether to give _their_ names either. It’s strange that ‘maybe these guys are criminals’ is a reassuring thought.

“Chloe,” Blue Hair says, after a moment. “Good to meet you.”

The other girl raises her hand in a slightly awkward greeting. “I’m Max.”

“Sean,” Sean says, even though it feels like a bad idea, because everyone else is introducing themselves and Daniel will probably have questions if he says he’s called something else. “What are you doing here? It seems like a weird place to be.”

Chloe folds her arms and gives him a pointed look.

“I mean...” Sean begins. “I mean, yeah, _we’re_ here, but that’s...”

He has absolutely no explanation for why they’re here. He doesn’t know himself.

Max sighs. It feels like there’s a lot behind it. “Because you thought the town was still here.”

Maybe he should just agree. Won’t that sound weird, though? Wouldn’t you look up Arcadia Bay online if you needed to go, figure out that, oh, yeah, it’s not there any more? “No, we knew it wasn’t. We saw it from up there. There was a plaque—”

“Arcadia Bay syndrome,” Chloe says. “Look it up.”

“A lot of people come here,” Max explains. “They all know it’s gone. They just... feel like it isn’t. They forget.”

That’s... weird. And they both sound really upset about it. Sean makes a guess. “Is that why you’re here? Just a wasted trip?”

Chloe laughs, but there’s nothing real there. “Nope. This is what we came here for.”

Max nods. “Just had to see it, I guess.”

Are these guys... _from_ Arcadia Bay? Are they survivors?

“It was always a shithole,” Chloe says. “We shouldn’t have come.”

“Do they know why the syndrome thing happens?” Sean asks. “I’m pretty sure that’s why we’re here. It’s bugging the shit out of me.”

“Don’t know,” Chloe says. But she says it weirdly, she says it like she’s got a good idea. “Maybe the town’s still here in another universe.”

Max gives her a strange, sharp look. Drops her eyes to the ground.

“No, but seriously,” Sean says.

“Seriously,” Chloe says, “look it up if you care. You can spend all day reading crazy forum theories.”

“Can we talk about something else?” Max asks.

-

They sit on the uneven remains of what used to be someone’s garden wall. Daniel sits next to Chloe, who he seems to have taken to pretty quickly after their rough start; Sean sits on Daniel’s other side, Max on Chloe’s. Mushroom starts sniffing around Max and Chloe’s feet. Chloe ruffles her behind the ears.

“You’re not gonna pet her?” Daniel asks Max, like it’s impossible for him to comprehend that someone might not want to pet a dog. Honestly, Sean’s kind of on Daniel’s side here. Mushroom’s pretty cute.

“Sorry,” Max says, with a quick smile. “Had some... bad experiences with dogs.”

“Hey, if she’s gonna rip my throat out, she’s gonna rip my throat out,” Chloe says, scratching Mushroom under the belly. Mushroom gives a couple of yaps. “Might as well get some petting in first.”

Max still looks hesitant. Chloe grabs her hand and guides it to Mushroom’s back, and Max laughs, startled.

It... feels like something Sean maybe shouldn’t be watching. He suspects Daniel might be about to get his heart broken, if he’s moved on in his weird age-inappropriate crushes from Lyla.

(Don’t think about Lyla.)

Mushroom, apparently satisfied, trots off to investigate the covered bus shelter next to them. The glass has been blown out in every panel, but the frame and the roof are just about holding together. At a _slightly_ weird angle. Sean leans forward to keep an eye on her.

Her tail apparently manages to offend her.

“Oh! Oh!” Daniel exclaims. “Look, Chloe! Mushroom’s chasing her tail! She’s so cute.” Mushroom bumps into the side of the shelter, and Daniel laughs. “I think she—”

There’s an ominous creaking and buckling. Sean jumps to his feet. So does Max, he registers out of the corner of his eye.

Fuck, the shelter’s definitely collapsing, he’s not going to be fast enough—

But the shelter just... stops collapsing, as he’s running for it. Impossibly. Metal and plastic just hovering in mid-air. Mushroom hops on the spot and barks up at the wreckage that should have flattened her by now.

“What the fuck?” Chloe demands. “Max?”

“It’s not me,” Max says. She’s standing almost as frozen as the bus shelter, her hand half-outstretched. “It doesn’t work like this.”

“I don’t...”

Daniel sounds like he’s on the verge of tears. Sean turns sharply to look at him. He’s on his feet, he’s trembling, his hands clenched into fists.

“I don’t know how to hold it,” Daniel says, his voice wavering, “I don’t know how to hold it, I don’t know how—”

No time to think. Sean darts into the not-collapsing bus shelter, scoops Mushroom up in his arms, runs out again. And he sees Daniel relax, and he hears everything crash to the ground behind him.

He turns, still holding Mushroom, and looks at the mess where the shelter was standing a moment ago.

It’s a moment before he can bring himself to look at Daniel again. He’s – he’s scared. He’s afraid of his nine-year-old brother.

“Holy shit,” Chloe says. “You’re like Max?”

That is not the question Sean was expecting.

-

“ _Time travel?_ ” Sean asks. Even after the definitely impossible thing he’s just seen, it sounds ridiculous. But he also aches with how much he wants it to be true. If it’s possible to go back, if they could save their dad...

“Only a few minutes,” Max says, and Sean tries not to show how much that crushes him.

“That is _awesome_ ,” Daniel says. He’s hugging Mushroom; he hasn’t let go of her since the bus shelter incident. “Could you teach me? Pleaaaaaase?”

“I don’t think it’s something you can just learn,” Chloe says. “Believe me, I’ve tried. Then again, I don’t have bus stop powers.”

“They’re not _bus stop powers_ ,” Daniel says. “They’re... I don’t know. Something cooler.”

“Guessing from your bro’s reaction this is a new thing,” Chloe says, clapping Daniel on the shoulder. “For all we know, you just have the power to control bus stops.”

“No,” Sean says. The realisation feels like a cold hand on the back of his neck. “I think this has happened before. I guess it’s... some kind of telekinesis?”

“ _Telekinesis_ ,” Daniel says, firmly. “Not bus stop powers.”

“Awesome,” Chloe says. “A budding telekinetic. I mean, it actually _is_ awesome, but I can’t wait for this kid to send a brick flying into my head.”

“I wouldn’t do that!” Daniel protests.

“Did it happen with the bus shelter?” Chloe asks, looking over at Max. “Did I get a steel bar through the eye?”

Max shakes her head. “You were fine.”

Sean can’t follow this conversation. “What?”

“Yeah, I die a lot,” Chloe explains.

The word _die_ slams Sean’s dad back into his head, like he ever really left it. It’s a moment before Sean’s able to breathe again, a moment after that before he realises that what Chloe just said doesn’t make sense. “What does _that_ mean?”

Chloe shrugs. “What I said. Apparently I’m extremely super being killed, like, one hundred percent of the time. I’m just telling you so you don’t freak out if it happens in front of you.”

“If you _die?_ ” Sean asks. “Yeah, I think we might just freak out anyway.”

“Max’ll fix it,” Chloe says. “I mean, she’ll try. The rewind thing has limits. But she’s managed every time so far.”

Is it true? Is there any chance she _really_ has time powers? If she does... well, it seems like those would be a good thing to have on your side when you’re running from the cops.

“So you can just rewind as often as you want?” Sean asks.

Max shakes her head, gripping her wrist with one hand behind her back. “We have to move on every time we use it. Really... _really_ bad things happen if you do it too many times in one place.”

Sean doesn’t know whether to ask for more detail or not. He wants to know, but she really doesn’t look like she wants to talk about it.

Daniel, of course, doesn’t know that much about tact yet. “What kind of bad things?”

“Could use it as much as we want here,” Chloe says, with a half-shrug. “We can’t fuck it up any worse.”

“Chloe,” Max says, quietly, “don’t say that.”

Sean looks from Max to Chloe to Max again, and then around, at the absolute devastated wasteland they’re standing in.

“Arcadia Bay?” he demands. “ _That_ kind of ‘bad thing’?”

Max hesitates. She does not say ‘no, of course I can’t make a tornado wipe an entire town off the map, that’d be ridiculous.’ She hesitates.

Holy shit. This is insane.

“Look,” Chloe says, “this telekinesis thing is cool as shit, don’t get me wrong, but can we talk about it anywhere else? I’m sick of this place. Where are you guys headed?”

“Uh,” Sean says. “South.”

“I want to go back to Seattle,” Daniel mutters. Sean tries to pretend he can’t hear it.

“South,” Chloe says. “Right. Anything more specific?”

He hasn’t told Daniel they’re going to Mexico; it might freak him out. He shakes his head. “Just... south.”

“Okay,” Chloe says. “Well, not like I’m the queen of thinking things through. Where’s your car? Or – wait, are you even old enough to drive?”

“I’m old enough,” Sean protests. He _can’t_ , but he’s old enough.

“We’ve been walking,” Daniel says. “For, like, _ever_.”

“You walked here?” Max asks. “From _Seattle?_ ”

“We ran into someone who gave us a ride,” Sean says. “He dropped us off near here. He wanted to take us further, but...”

But Sean lost his mind and insisted on walking into a town that doesn’t exist. He’ll have to look up Arcadia Bay syndrome if he ever gets Internet access again.

“You want a ride from us?” Chloe asks. “We _didn’t_ walk here, because we’re not total maniacs.”

“Oh, yes, please!” Daniel says. “Thank you!”

Sean frowns. “Are you going south?”

“We’re going wherever,” Chloe says. “Like Max said. Too much rewinding in one place, bad things happen.”

-

Chloe walks briskly ahead, leading the way to her vehicle, while Daniel half-runs to keep up with her and Mushroom keeps up with Daniel. Sean drops back to talk to Max.

He keeps it as quiet as possible; Daniel can’t hear this. But he tells her what happened in Seattle. Not getting into details, just sketching the bare outline, in the hope maybe he’ll be able to get through without crying.

The tears get into his throat, into his voice, even if he just about manages to hold them back from his eyes.

“Shit,” Max breathes, quietly. “I’m so sorry.”

“Did you ever get past it?” Sean asks. He gestures to the remains of the town around them. “What happened, I mean.”

He doesn’t say _what you did_.

(If he’d just played with Daniel, if he hadn’t shunted him out of his room...)

Max hesitates long enough for Sean to know he’s never going to stop being fucked up about this.

“You get patches when you’re not thinking about it,” she says. “And then I guess you realise you’re not thinking about it. And then you’re thinking about it again.”

To be honest, it’s not what he wanted to hear.

But meeting someone else who’s carrying around a ton of guilt, someone who might be able to help Daniel with whatever the hell is going on with him...

Well, he guesses it’s good not to be alone.


End file.
